


Knock-Knock-Knockin' on Heaven's Door

by SailorSlayer3641



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Donna Smoak appearance, F/M, Happy Ending, very very brief mentions of cancer and miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 16:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5750599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorSlayer3641/pseuds/SailorSlayer3641
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Damnit! Why? Why her and not me? How could I survive the mountain? How can one bullet take her away from me? How is this fair?”</p>
<p>A POV fic during the events of 4x09, concluding with my own personal outcome for Felicity that is not canon (or at least will not be if we are to believe the spoilers).  Inspired by the song of the same title.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knock-Knock-Knockin' on Heaven's Door

**Author's Note:**

> So hi...It's been a very long time since I've posted anything on AO3, and I apologize for that. I've been writing and only posting things on my tumblr page, but in the coming week(s) I hope to make a large post on here with all of my little oneshots.
> 
> This little ficlet is/was a bit different from the way I usually write, or at least it felt like it to me as I was writing it. I hope you all enjoy it, and if you're concerned, it does have a happy ending. (The mentions of cancer and miscarriage do not apply to Felicity, and are only mentioned in passing)
> 
> Happy reading!!!
> 
> ~Sailor Slayer

##  **Knock-Knock-Knocking on Heaven’s Door**

All-consuming.

That’s what her captivating azure eyes and soft, delicate hands are to him. He never fails to lose himself in the nature of her being…her existence.

Tonight though…tonight everything is compounded. Every feeling he’s ever had for her, every dream of a future with her, every lingering glance shared between them…it’s all folding in on itself in this moment, over and over again, becoming smaller yet denser.

She said yes.

His fingers can feel the cool metal resting against her left hand. His eyes can see the pure joy and adulation reflecting in those blue irises. Everything narrows down to the realization that she has agreed to spend the rest of her life with him.

And then it explodes, that finite point that had become so small and dense. They’ve created a big bang…a new universe full of infinite possibilities.

He’s had so many new beginnings, none of which have ever felt like this.

Their noses brush softly and her demure hand squeezes his tightly. Their eyes blink open, and like everything she does, it’s magical. Captivating.

Distracting.

The limo has come to a stop before he realizes that something’s wrong. Seconds later, bullets rip through the universe they just created.

Like so many times before, too many times before, his instincts have him covering her body with his. He promised to keep her safe. Maybe he should have known way back then that the act of making a promise he couldn’t keep was a sure sign that she meant more to him. If the damaged and withdrawn “hood” couldn’t imagine a world without her in it…if that man he used to be couldn’t even entertain the idea that one day he might be unable to protect her…then the man that he’s become, the man that knows what it is to be loved by Felicity Smoak…that man is prepared to die if it means sparing her life.

So his body curls around hers, and his hand shields her face. He will not even allow the shards of glass shattering around them to cause her any pain.

The limo loses control, and Oliver knows that their driver is dead. Later he’ll be grateful that he insisted John go home to his family, but right now all he knows is that  they could crash, and violent images from the night his mother died assault him.

_“How’s the blonde girl, with the glasses?”_

_“Felicity.”_

Pure unadulterated fear surges through his chest as he clings to her tightly, their bodies momentarily becoming weightless as the limo lifts off the ground, only to have them violently crash back down.

Slade Wilson isn’t responsible for this attack, but it reminds him that yet another man has made a promise to take away what means most to him.

They always find a way, right?

He’s managed to keep his promise to John from all those years ago despite bomb collars, Helena, landmines, crashing through the glass walls of QC, Count Vertigo, Slade, Vertigo again, and Ra’s al Ghul himself.

He knows what he needs to do to make this another failed attempt on her life. He has to leave her, abandon his place by her side long enough to take control of the limo.

With more adrenaline than he’s ever felt, he manages to move the lifeless body of their driver with one hand while climbing over the console and seat to reach the wheel.

Relief floods him as he drives them further and further away from the “ghosts.”

It angers him that he just wants this day to end. It angers him that on the day they decide to spend the rest of their lives together, “until death do us part,” has almost happened twice.

He needs to hold her, reassure himself that she’s alright, once again.

But unlike a few hours ago, she doesn’t reach out to him when he opens the door. She doesn’t immediately wrap her arms around him and whisper that she’s here, that she’s alright.

She doesn’t do anything.

He’s so confused.

They were supposed to find a way. They _always_ find a way.

He was supposed to keep his promise

They were supposed to have the rest of their lives together.

Instead she’s lying still in his arms, her blood coating his fingers, with sirens wailing in the distance.

**_Mama take this badge from me_ **

**_I can’t use it anymore_ **

**_It’s getting dark too dark to see_ **

**_Feels like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door_ **

Oliver’s not sure if he’s ever believed in a God. He grew up celebrating the big Christian holidays and made the obligatory appearances at church with his family. His parents never sat him down and spoke to him about the possibilities of a maker and a heaven. When he was scolded as a child and a reckless teenager, it was for making his family look bad, never for being a sinner.

After five years of hell and fruitless prayers, he decided that if there was a God, he didn’t care about the Queen heir, or the rest of the world really.

But then Felicity walked into his life… and his heart, and for the first time in his miserable existence, he thought maybe he’d felt God’s grace.

After she’s pulled from his arms and they’re rushed to the nearest hospital; after machines and wires invade her body; after he hears the worst sound, someone’s heart stopping, for the second time in a year; he finds himself collapsed on his knees in front of a cross he’s never revered.

**_Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door_ **

**_Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door_ **

**_Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door_ **

**_Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door_ **

 Oliver has seen the unimaginable before, the miraculous. Lives have been revived, souls returned to their dwellings, arrows stopped in mid-air.

Is God really that far of a stretch?

Down the hall Felicity is fighting for her life, and in the small hospital chapel, Oliver does the same.

His chest aches with pain, and hot tears seer his face. Rationality takes a backseat while desperation takes its place. He prays.

“Please, not her…the world needs her…I need her. She’s too good…”

The hard cold tile of the floor is making his knees hurt, and he tries to hold himself together, but one red-stained fist manages to pound angrily against the base of the altar.

“Damnit! Why? Why her and not me? How could I survive the mountain? How can one bullet take her away from me? How is this fair?”

That’s it, isn’t it? This time he can’t be mad at himself. This time he wasn’t the only one calling the shots.

_Her life, her choice._

**_Mama put my guns in the ground_ **

**_I can’t shoot them anymore_ **

**_That cold black cloud is comin’ down_ **

**_Feels like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door_ **

Eventually he comes to his senses long enough to find the waiting room and meet the long faces of his team, but he can’t bare to look Donna in the eye. She doesn’t even know the real reason why her daughter’s life is on the line. The familiar weight of guilt settles in his gut as he sits next to her and allows the mother of the woman he loves to cry on his shoulder.

A tired and weary doctor arrives, and Donna laces their fingers together as they stand to hear the fate of the most important person in their lives.

When the words, “alive and stable,” reach his ears, he takes in one sharp breath before choked sobs force themselves out. Donna’s in his arms in a second, and for a moment they just cling to each other.

She pulls back and looks up at him.

“Let’s go see our girl,” she says as she wipes the tears from his face.

Did his prayers work? Did he somehow convince an all-knowing deity to see reason?

When his eyes land on her small form and he hears the steady beat of the heart monitor, he decides that it doesn’t matter. He’d do it again, even if he was only talking to air.

For a few hours he and Donna sit at her side. They talk about the engagement and the future, and the mind-numbing fear that’s been gripping him all day starts to subside.

It’s been a while though, long enough for the anesthesia to wear off, and when a doctor comes in, he runs various tests on her body.

But her azure eyes never open.

She’s fallen into a coma.

The doctors spend a long time talking to them in soft, soothing voices, reassuring them that she could wake up at any time, that this is not uncommon.

Oliver spends a long time talking himself off the ledge, convincing himself not to go kill every living thing standing between him and Damien Darhk. He convinces himself to stay by her side, where he belongs.

He never leaves the hospital. Diggle brings him a duffle of clothes and an army cot.

A week goes by, and when Oliver’s not sitting by her bedside keeping a silent vigil, he’s in the small chapel.

When the week started, he was angry. He would ask God why she deserved this. Why did her mother deserve this pain? Was he being punished, and if he was, wasn’t it unfair to make them suffer too?

But over the course of the week, many others sought out answers from the small room. Oliver would sit in the back and listen as the elderly woman prayed for God to take her husband’s pain away. A scraggly teenage boy angrily asked why his little sister had to have cancer. A woman guiltily clutched her abdomen and questioned why her body wasn’t strong enough to bring new life into this world.

Oliver started to realize something.

Life isn’t fair no matter who you are. It’s a game of chance.

God or no God. Rich or poor. Old or young. Sinner or Saint. Playboy or MIT grad.

_Mask or no mask._

There will always be Slade Wilson’s and Damien Darhk’s in this world, in some form or another.

On the seventh day of her coma, he lays on his cot in the dark. It’s not even sunrise yet, but as usual he’s awake. The past week has been like regressing to his habits before he and Felicity drove off into the sunset.

He was once able to curl himself around her in the early morning hours of the day, feel the soft puffs of her breath against his skin, and feel her love and warmth when she’d reach out for him.

But she hasn’t moved in a week, and he finds himself unable to go back to sleep. He feels more alone than he’s felt since his days on the island. It’s the absence of her love that has left a deep chasm in his chest.

In the stillness, fear creeps in.

What if she never wakes up? What if they never get to start their lives together? What if she never gets to meet his son?

What if he’s never given the chance to apologize about keeping William from her? He can’t stand the thought of her never knowing these things.

What if the _rest of their lives_ is only a week long?

He pulls himself up from the cot and makes his way to the chair right next to her sleeping form. He holds her hand and ignores the sharp sting in his eyes that comes when he traces his mother’s ring on her finger. With a deep shuddering sigh, he holds her hand to his face and settles his elbows on the hospital mattress.

“I have a son,” he starts softly.

He tells her everything. He begs for her forgiveness.

He prays at her altar. She’s the one thing he does believe in beyond a shadow of a doubt.

She’s his heaven on earth.

**_Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door_ **

**_Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door_ **

**_Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door_ **

**_Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door_ **

Hours later he wakes with one arm slung across her waist, his head against the mattress, and her hand in his.

He feels a warmth he hasn’t felt since those short moments of bliss in the limo.

Delicate fingers sweep across his temple in a soothing pattern…captivating blue eyes are waiting to meet his gaze as he blinks away sleep.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” she says teasingly.

A whimper escapes his lips before they descend upon her hand and travel up the length of her arm in a flurry. Their foreheads meet and their noses brush softly.

Her demure hand squeezes his fiercely.

“Thank you for coming back to me.”

“Thank you for never leaving me. I heard you talking to me, or at least I think I did,” she says, tilting her head in confusion.

Then she smiles fondly at him.

“Or maybe I was just dreaming about you.”

Oliver is incredulous, but he smiles just the same.

 “You have a son,” she says matter-of-factly, as if she were saying the sky was blue and the grass was green.

 He stares at her in shock for a moment, but relief floods him when realizes he no longer has to keep this secret from her.

 “I’m so sorry, Felicity. I’m so sorry,” he repeats over and over.

 “Shh, shh,” she says reassuringly, “You had to do whatever it takes to be with your son…and I love you all the more for it.”

 Wordlessly his lips find hers, and he loses himself in the nature of her being…revels in her existence.


End file.
